"And bald."
(Roland roared.)
"I'm gonna be serious, okay? If you don't like it, stick it where you keep your change-purse. My Nana was a great lady.
Women in general are great, you know it? But they have their flaws, just like men. If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving a baby's life, for instance, she'll save the baby without even considering how many men are on base. Bing!" He rapped his head with his knuckles and popped his eyes in a way that made them both laugh. Roland tried to put his coffee cup down and spilled it. He was holding his stomach. Hearing him laugh so hard-to surrender to laughter so completely-was funny in itself, and Susannah burst out in a fresh gale.
"Men are one thing, women are another. Put em together and you've got a whole new taste treat. Like Oreos. Like Peanut Butter Cups. Like raisin cake with snot sauce. Show me a man and a woman and I'll show you the Peculiar Institution-not slavery, marriage. But I repeat myself. Bing!" He rapped his head. Popped his eyes. This time they seemed to come kasproing halfway out of their sockets
(how does he do that)
and Susannah had to clutch her stomach, which was beginning to ache with the force of her laughter. And her temples were beginning to pound. It hurt, but it was a good hurt.
"Marriage is having a wife or a husband. Yeah! Check Webster's!
Bigamy is having a wife or husband too many. Of course, that's also monogamy. Bing!"
If Roland laughed any harder, Susannah thought, he would go sliding right out of his chair and into the puddle of spilled coffee.
"Then there's divorce, a Latin term meaning 'to rip a man's genitals out through the wallet."
"But I was talking about Cleveland, remember? You know how Cleveland got started? A bunch of people in New York said, 'Gee I'm starting to enjoy the crime and die poverty, but it's not quite cold enough. Let's go west.'"
Laughter, Susannah would reflect later, is like a hurricane: once it reaches a certain point, it becomes self-feeding, selfsupporting.
You laugh not because the jokes are funny but because your own condition is funny. Joe Collins took them to this point with his next sally.
"Hey, remember in elementary school, you were told that in case of fire you have to line up quiedy with the smallest people in front and the tallest people at die end of the line? What's the logic in that? Do tall people burn slower?"
Susannah shrieked wiui laughter and slapped die side of her face. This produced a sudden and unexpected burst of pain that drove all the laughter out of her in a moment. The sore beside her mouth had been growing again, but hadn't bled in two or three days. When she inadvertently struck it wiui her flailing hand, she knocked away the blackish-red crust covering it.
The sore did not just bleed; it gushed.
For a moment she was unaware of what had just happened.
She only knew that slapping the side of her face hurt much more than it should have done. Joe also seemed unaware (his eyes were mosdy closed again), must have been unaware, because he rapped faster than ever: "Hey, and what about that seafood restaurant they have at Sea World? I got halfway through my fishburger and wondered if I was eating a slow learner! Bing!
And speaking offish-"
Oy barked in alarm. Susannah felt sudden wet warmth run down the side of her neck and onto her shoulder.
"Stop, Joe," Roland said. He sounded out of breath. Weak.
With laughter, Susannah supposed. Oh, but the side of her face hurt, and-
Joe opened his eyes, looking annoyed. "What? Jesus Christ, you wanted it and I was givingit to ya!"
"Susannah's hurt herself." The gunslinger was up and looking at her, laughter lost in concern.
"I'm not hurt, Roland, I just slapped myself upside the head a litde harder than I m-" Then she looked at her hand and was dismayed to see it was wearing a red glove.
NINE
Oy barked again. Roland snatched the napkin from beside his overturned cup. One end was brown and soaking with coffee, but the other was dry. He pressed it against the gushing sore and Susannah winced away from his touch at first, her eyes filling with tears.
"Nay, let me stop the bleeding at least," Roland murmured, and grasped her head, working his fingers gently into the tight cap of her curls. "Hold steady." And for him she managed to do it.
Through her watering eyes Susannah thought Joe still looked pissed that she had interrupted his comedy routine in such drastic (not to mention messy) fashion, and in a way she didn't blame him. He'd been doing a really good job; she'd gone and spoiled it. Aside from the pain, which was abating a little now, she was horribly embarrassed, remembering the time she had started her period in gym class and a little trickle of blood had run down her thigh for the whole world to see-that part of it with whom she had third-period PE, at any rate. Some of the girls had begun chanting Plug it UP!, as if it were the funniest thing in the world.